


Trails

by anarchyarmin



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:02:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6620740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchyarmin/pseuds/anarchyarmin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin and Levi tend to their injuries after the fall of Wall Maria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trails

Black trails of smoke drift across the blistering red sunset. From his post on top of the wall, Levi can see the light of dozens of funeral pyres, throngs of mourners, the cowering hordes of refugees cramped into the makeshift shelters erected by the Garrison. 

 

It’s been three days since the fall of Wall Maria. The Survey Corps have hardly slept, eaten, or even sat down. But now the evacuation is complete. Levi sinks down with his back to a crate, contemplating the smoke. The ever-present wind from above the walls drowns out the sound of what can only be chorus of wailing below. He wants to scoff, wants to spit, to roll his eyes. But now he knows. On the pyres are the bodies of a thousand other Farlans, Isabels, and Kuchels, their ashes scattering into the air. No one to him, but everything to some grief-stricken soul wandering hopeless beneath him. 

 

Near the base of the wall, he spots three children clinging to each other by a small fire: one little blonde head nestled between two brown ones. A flicker of pity in his chest begins to break through the forced numbness of the past three days. Never in his life did he imagine the world above ground would come to look so much like the Underground.

 

Levi’s fingers drift to a trail of bumps beneath his shirt: sutures, placed carefully by Hange in the makeshift field hospital. A decapitated soldier’s blade had flung wildly through the air, grazing Levi’s side. Levi had been disgusted—and thoroughly impressed—at the precision with which Hange stitched the gash back together.

 

“So,” he muttered. “Who stitches _you_ back up when you get hurt?”

 

Hange merely smiled and sighed as they applied a stinging salve to the trail of tiny incisions.

 

A long shadow appears next to Levi. Erwin doesn’t have to say anything. Levi knows to follow him.

 

Even the horses are tired, Erwin thinks, as the pitiful remnant of the brigade shuffles its way back to headquarters. Long days even for the animals: hauling supplies, hauling bodies. Levi rides uneasily. His bones are burning, every muscle screams with soreness, but the worst, the most intense pain, comes from the sutures. He feels his whole body contort to accommodate it—the tension radiating from this one gash—still barely a paper cut compared to the orgy of bloodshed from the previous days.

 

From the corner of his eye, Levi notices Erwin’s face. Everyone’s are coated with dust, dirt, and blood: days of perspiration have drawn filth to them like a magnet. But on Erwin’s face there are two clear trails beneath each of his eyes, running through the mask of dirt and dried blood across his cheeks. Levi wonders if he knows. If he should say anything. If Erwin even cares.

 

The baths aren’t meant to be used at night, but they must, by force. A single oil lamp burns awkwardly at the door, casting weird shadows around the misty tile room. Levi breathes in the heavy steam and wrings the last of the filthy water from his washcloth when Erwin walks in. Figures, Levi thinks, that Erwin would be the last one to rest. From the far corner, he watches Erwin gingerly peel off his clothes and sit tentatively on a wooden stool. His back and shoulder are hatched through with a mess of deep cuts, each one carefully sewn up—but a few beginning to reopen, sending tiny red trails down the man’s broad back.

 

“Fuck,” Levi says. “What happened to _you_?”

 

He is well acquainted with the alphabet of bruises, scrapes, and burns that come from fighting titans. But cuts like this are unusual.

 

Erwin laughs dryly.

 

“Did you know,” he says, “that if a titan steps on a building, the pressure from the inside can cause the windows to explode?”

 

Levi walks over, concerned. Erwin’s tone is nonchalant, and Levi doesn’t believe it for a second. 

 

“Shit,” he mutters, trying to translate the sensation of the one screaming, sutured wound on his side to his entire back. “Erwin, these look bad. Some of these are starting to reopen. Here—“

 

Levi grabs Erwin’s washcloth and gently wipes away the blood. Then he realizes: this is not the work of ordinary windows. He remembers the chapel, adorned with colorful panels of thick, stained glass, woven through with metal plating, reduced to dust under a titan’s burning foot, sending searing fragments flying, capable of slicing through fabric and skin. 

 

Erwin’s eyes flicker as he sees the brilliant red from the corner of his eye. His breathing is shallow and sharp.

 

“You should stay still,” Levi says. “If you move too much, you’re going to make them worse.”

 

Erwin doesn’t object. Levi opens the tap and fresh plumes of steam fill the room. He works the soapy rag delicately between the cuts, between Erwin’s pained breaths. 

 

“Nothing stops you from cleaning, does it?” Erwin says with a weak grin.

 

“Tch,” is Levi’s only reply, as he deftly and thoroughly scrubs away the last several days of grime and terror from Erwin’s skin. 

 

Erwin squints as Levi stands in front of him.

 

“There are some places I should probably take care of for myself.”

 

“Of course,” Levi says cooly. “But everything else, you leave to me,” he mutters, setting to work on Erwin’s hands and feet. 

 

In the moment, he’s grateful; not for the nauseating shock of wounds on Erwin’s back, but for his arch-nemeses—dirt and blood—and the task at hand to distract him from the contour of Erwin’s muscles. Erwin welcomes the distraction of the gripping pain, trying not to look too closely at the glimmer of the lantern light on Levi’s wet skin. 

 

Erwin closes his eyes delicately as Levi reaches his face. The two trails are still there, shining through the layer of dried blood. He must not have known, Levi thinks; he must not have bothered looking in a mirror. No point in telling him now. But still, it conjures up a knot of pity in Levi. Two little trails, betraying the man’s seemingly unshakeable stoicism. Levi steels his face, trying to conceal the heat and the moisture building behind his own eyes. He gently scrubs the dirt and blood away until the only blemish left on Erwin’s face is the inevitable darkness of fatigue.

 

“Thank you,” Erwin says quietly.

 

Levi simply nods. 

 

“Have Hange look at your sutures again,” he says. “And try not to move too much.”

 

Levi puts on clean clothes in the anteroom, and opens the door to step out into the soft, cool night. He hears a profound sigh echo from Erwin behind him, and it pains him.

 

Erwin sits in the semi-darkness, in the steam, and wonders. Will he tell Levi? And how? How to convey to him that when he says he wants to save humanity, he means _this_? Not just individuals, but their _humanity_ —their _humaneness_. Life as he knows it has been ruthlessness and despair, but punctuated by acts of kindness—like a dark sky peppered with stars. 

 

Erwin muses on his encounter with his bright star, the shining star of the Survey Corps, while his eyes follow the trail of bloody water and adrenaline down the drain.


End file.
